These are letters we received about stories that appeared in the May – June 2012 issue of L.A. Youth.

Illustration by Cindy Kim, 17, Whitney HS (Cerritos)

Do I belong here?The discrimination Miguel, 18, has faced has made him wonder if he’s welcome in America.

This was the first time I had faced racism and it made me wonder if people looked down on Latinos. But I didn’t find out why until 10th grade, when my class did a project on stereotypes in the media. That day our teacher was talking about the stereotypes of different people. We learned the stereotypes about Mexicans: that they are poor and lazy. I didn’t know that was how a lot of people saw us.

Vegetarıan challengeMany teens try to be vegetarian at some point in their lives, whether it’s for their health, animal rights or the environment. We decided to see how hard it would be to not eat meat for seven days.